


We Belong

by celli, ofjustimagine



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Audio Format: M4A, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Community: pod_together, Home, Multi, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25598869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofjustimagine/pseuds/ofjustimagine
Summary: “Go back to sleep, Guerin, the adults are having a moment,” Maria said.Michael just laughed. “Well, then, don’t let me get in the way.” He pulled Alex’s arm more firmly around himself and tucked his nose into Maria’s neck. “Make yourselves at home,” he said, muffled.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39
Collections: Pod_Together 2020, Pod_Together BIPOC Character Love





	We Belong

**Author's Note:**

> celli's notes: thanks to the many friends who encouraged me, to thestarsexist for the beta, and especially to ofjustimagine for turning a vague idea into a great story framework (and for putting up with my flaky self).
> 
> ofjustimagine's notes: Music is from Pat Benetar's "We Belong" (obviously). Thanks to celli for throwing this idea into the universe for me to help play with! ♥

  


[mp3 download](https://f002.backblazeb2.com/file/ofjustimagine-podfic/misc/%5BRoswell%2C+NM%5D+We+Belong.mp3)  
[m4a download](https://f002.backblazeb2.com/file/ofjustimagine-podfic/misc/%5BRoswell%2C+NM%5D+We+Belong.m4a)  


Alex came awake in a start, holding himself still as he did a personal assessment. His stab wound was better but still sore; the rest of him was sore, but in a better way; and he was tangled up in a pile of naked bodies, which...his gut couldn’t pick out as better _or_ worse, honestly. 

He let his eyes drift closed and tried to process the events of the night before. When he opened them again, Maria was awake and eyeing him steadily from the other side of Michael’s sleeping face.

Alex smiled tentatively at her; she reached out a hand to him and he tangled his fingers with hers over Michael’s chest.

“Well, this is disgustingly sweet,” Michael said, his eyes still closed but his mouth curving in an irrepressible grin. 

“Go back to sleep, Guerin, the adults are having a moment,” Maria said. 

Michael just laughed. “Well, then, don’t let me get in the way.” He pulled Alex’s arm more firmly around himself and tucked his nose into Maria’s neck. “Make yourselves at home,” he said, muffled.

Alex and Maria looked at each other again. “We can do that,” Alex said into the side of Michael’s neck; Michael shivered a little.

* * *

“Weird question,” Michael said about a week later, stepping out of the trailer to where Maria and Alex were relaxing with beer and takeout. “Do I suddenly have better towels than I used to?”

Alex grinned into his beer and let Maria answer. “Than shit-brown ones that are held together by some sort of unknown alien magic? Why, yes, yes you do,” she said. She handed Michael a box of lo mein; he took it and leaned down to kiss her. “The sheets are courtesy of your friendly neighborhood gay guy, though,” she added. 

“What about my sheets?” Michael asked.

“Your thread count was, like, negative one, Jesus,” Alex said around an egg roll. “You’ll thank me tonight.”

“I had planned to,” Michael said, “although not for that.”

“Well, that _too_ ,” Alex said, grinning at him. Michael leaned over to kiss him before settling in between them. Alex wedged in as close to him as possible and tried to figure out how eleven years of pining had turned into a week of comfort and how not to be afraid of how fucking happy he was.

* * *

Michael’s head went up as soon as he came through the door. He stopped short. “There’s something here.”

Maria and Alex looked up from where they were sprawled across the bed, feet in each others’ laps. Maria was balancing her laptop next to her and Alex was scribbling in a notebook.

When Michael just kept standing there, Alex said slowly, “ _We’re_...here?”

“Alex,” Maria said.

Alex sighed and picked up his bag from the bed next to him. “I found this a while ago, and I was holding onto it for...reasons I am not really proud of. But I didn’t, I couldn’t lie to you and be,” he gestured to the three of them, “in this with you.”

He opened the bag and pulled out a piece of the alien ship, which sang out to Michael unmuffled now that he had a clear line of sight to it. Michael jolted forward and reached out for the piece, but Alex kept his hand on it.

“Guerin, you have every right to be pissed, I just--”

“Don’t,” Michael said. “Don’t justify--”

The ringing of the piece of tech changed, and Michael saw that Maria had reached out to lay a hand on it. Goosebumps shivered on his skin.

“Do you hear something?” Alex asked. Maria had her head tilted to the side.

Michael tried to hold onto his anger, but the look of dawning wonder on their faces made it hard to hold on. “This is a piece of my past,” he said. He searched for words but all the usual ones he associated with the ship pieces - _home, family, escape_ \- their meanings shifted along with the sounds ringing not just in his ears, but through all his senses.

“I think I understand that now,” Alex said slowly. “It’s a piece of who you _are_.”

Michael stumbled forward to kiss him and felt Maria’s fingers slide into his hair.

“Thank you,” Michael said a minute later, reluctantly pulling away. He kept the piece where everyone could still reach it, not wanting the sound to change back.

“Sure,” Alex said. “Just don’t run off and escape to outer space with it, okay?” He attempted a laugh, but Michael read the worry in his eyes - and in Maria’s, as she picked up the mood.

“Gotcha,” he said, forcing a casual tone as he pulled the piece away and set it on the counter. “Earthbound it is.”

He wasn’t sure how convincing he sounded, so he climbed into the bed and tried to convince them the only way he knew how.

In the back of his mind, he noticed that the song from the ship's piece hadn’t changed since the three of them let go of it.

* * *

Michael opened his eyes into the darkness and unwound himself from Alex and Maria, both sleepily protesting. They were asleep again by the time he got back from the bathroom, her hair fanned across Alex’s chest and Alex’s legs tangled up with hers.

Michael looked down at them for a long moment, then around at the ship’s piece on the counter. It was next to Maria’s keys from the Pony, dropped carelessly on top of his new dish towel even though in their past lives Michael had at least twice pickpocketed the keys off her to raid her liquor stash. Tacked up on the wall behind it was a postcard, worn with time and reading, from Alex in Afghanistan years ago. Michael could pick out his own name without trying. _I miss you and Liz. Even Guerin’s “charms” seem more charming from a desert away._

Michael stood lost in thought for a long time. Then he crawled back in and cuddled up behind Maria.

* * *

“No, something’s up,” Maria said as she stepped out of her truck.

“Listen, just because he asked us to come over instead of acting like he didn’t give a shit - which is progress - doesn’t mean…” Alex trailed off as he rounded the front. “Uh.”

A scratched-up table sat in front of Michael’s trailer next to the fire, with a tablecloth on it. Okay, Maria realized, it was plastic and probably from the dollar store, but it was an actual tablecloth. There were mismatched cups on it, and as she and Alex watched, Michael started ladling something out of a pot into three equally mismatched bowls.

“What is this?” Alex asked.

“Hopefully chili,” Michael said, setting the last bowl down. It started to slip from his hand. “Fuck!” He narrowed his eyes and it floated up and into place.

“Guerin,” Maria said. “You can cook?”

“I hope so, or Max’s kitchen is trashed for no reason.” Michael grinned over at them, but Maria could see the nerves under the bravado. "Have a seat.”

Maria and Alex sat, trading wide-eyed glances with each other. “Wine?” Michael asked. He picked up a bottle of red wine that Maria definitely didn’t serve at the Pony. He saw the look in her eye and winked. “Purchased with my own ill-gotten funds, DeLuca.” A moment’s focus on it, and the cork popped out.

Maria looked down at the table as Michael poured. The washcloths she’d bought him were doing double duty as napkins tonight. She had a fork and spoon, and so did Alex, but Michael had a set of plastic silverware at his place. Alex saw it too; his eyes went bright, and Maria blinked hard.

“Guerin,” she said.

Michael handed her a mason jar half-full of wine. “Ma’am?”

She hauled him down by the jacket and kissed him. Behind him, Alex pushed himself to his feet. Michael turned to him and was immediately hauled into his arms.

“You haven’t even tasted anything yet,” Michael said a bit shakily, one hand on Maria’s and one wrapped around Alex’s arm. “It could suck.”

“I promise you, it doesn’t,” Maria said, tugging Michael’s hand until he sat between them. 

It was a relief when it did taste good, although she would have eaten her share regardless. She and Alex made all the appropriate noises and Michael’s face reddened.

“I do know what you’re doing, you know,” he said finally.

“What are we doing?” Alex asked.

“You have a whole house, and Maria has more room than this--” He gestured to the trailer. “Over the Pony.”

Alex shrugged, and Maria echoed him. “You’re not _at_ my house, or at the Pony,” Alex said. 

Maria said, “You live here.” She gestured to the bunker under the trailer. “Your life is here. So if you belong here...” She spread her hands out. “Here we are with you.”

Michael shifted in a way Maria recognized. She carefully didn’t touch him while he ducked his head, hiding his eyes behind his hat. Finally he looked up, a vulnerability on his face that she could never have expected to see even a few weeks ago.

“I’m glad,” he said, and his expression said the rest.


End file.
